Page 16 of The Broken Wolf's Redemption

The guys from the garage? He didn’t have their phone numbers memorized. It was after hours. There would be no one there.

His family? He knew most of their numbers, but they were about three hours plus traffic and packing time away.

He didn’t know Gloria’s number offhand. What kind of idiot did that make him that he couldn’t even call the babysitter and tell her why he was late?

There was only one number that was burned into his brain.

She could get here shortly. Cram him in his car. Take him back to Waverly, collect her, and head directly to his former pack lands. Brooke Wind, their pack healer and healer to most of the packs in the area, would treat him. She’d remained neutral for anything. She owned her own land. He wasn’t banished from her land or home.

Life had the most perfect sense of irony. Any and all the gods or forces of the universe were laughing at him. He was going to have to humble himself the way he’d forced her to do. Beg her. He was going to have to play nice and say please and put himself in her hands. He’d be at her mercy. She was about to see him at his weakest and most vulnerable, but short of passing out on the sidewalk and getting dragged back inside, or having the wolf come out and go on an unholy terror around the city, probably to be shot by a terrified citizen or law enforcement, there was nothing he could do.

He dialed.

His brain was barely pushing through her phone numbers. Would he even be coherent enough to call anyone else, even if it was a four-hour wait? He could hide himself until they arrived, but could he even stand up for that long? His head was starting to feel like it was full of toxic waste. It was invading every crevice used for thinking.

“Hello?” she answered. Her voice was pure heaven drifting through that phone. He nearly fell to his knees right there and kissed the concrete.

“Seren. It’s Rome. I need a favor. A big favor. I’ve been in an accident. I need you to come to the hospital. I’m outside waiting. It’s urgent.”

“What? I can barely—you’re slurring everything you’re saying. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Help. Hospital. Come now. Wait outside.”

“Oh my god. I get it. The wolf. You’re in danger. We’re all in danger. To be clear, that’s the only reason I’m dropping everything right now and leaving. And yes, I went right to the bathroom as soon as I heard your voice. No one can hear me here. At least no clients. Rome, are you still with me?”

Barely. He was barely hanging on. Not when the world was so upside down and inside out. Not when his stomach was punching at his throat and his brain sickeningly.

“Yeah. Here.”

“Where is here? What hospital?”

Rome looked to the man helplessly. He was watching him carefully. “Do you know what hospital this is?”

The man said something that Rome tried to translate over the phone.

Thankfully, Seren picked up on most of it. “Okay. I’ll be there in twenty. Good thing I’m close.”

Casper wasn’t some vast city, so everywhere was pretty much close in any direction.

Rome hung up and passed the man back his phone. “Do you have a piece of paper?”

He blinked, but then slid a small notebook with an impossibly tiny pen out of his pocket. Rome wondered if he was hallucinating that because it looked so strange. But no. He picked up the pen and looked at him quizzically.

“Write your name and number for me. I’m a rich man. When I get my wallet back and this figured out, I plan on sending you a large chunk of money in exchange for your time and kindness.”

“Oh.” The man folded up the notebook onto the pen. He shook his head. He had jowls and they jiggled a little with the movement, but Rome could no longer find him undistinguished. He wasn’t just a pathetic middle-aged creature walking with a depressed stance into one of the most wretched buildings ever invented.

He was beautiful in an odd way.

Kindness. He’d been in desperate need of help and this man had given it. That transformed the man’s appearance.

“No. Thank you. I just want to make sure you’ll be okay.”

“My wife will be here in twenty minutes. Thank you.” He hoped the words were coming out how he meant them, but he was no longer sure. The man was clearly straining to understand him.

A bench. Wood. Metal. Uncomfortable. His eyes landed on it, and he hobbled off, dragging his leg now, his other hip ready to give out.

There was something astoundingly wrong with his stomach. He had to settle himself on the bench, his bad leg out in front of him and lean his elbows on his knees. The churning nausea burning through him only got worse, until he tasted acid in his mouth. He tried to lean further forward, but it wasn’t enough. He still emptied his stomach out all over the bottom half of his jeans. It was just his luck that it was the pantleg that hadn’t been cut away.

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